


You Will Be Found

by FandomRandom2020



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Rambling, Songfic, because i'm a basic bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24320728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FandomRandom2020/pseuds/FandomRandom2020
Summary: An interpretation of what the in-universe audience saw and heard during the song "You Will Be Found".
Relationships: Evan Hansen & Connor Murphy
Kudos: 5





	You Will Be Found

He walks slowly toward the podium, his fingers on his right hand rhythmically kneading the hem of his shirt, a comforting, almost childish gesture. His left arm is in a cast, held awkwardly to his side. His eyes look out and down, toward the ground in beneath the stage, as though searching for a place to fix his gaze where no one will meet it.

_God, I almost blew off this assembly, can you imagine?_

_If you listen carefully you can tell there's already people in the audience laughing at this point. There’s so many fucking pricks in this fucking place._

_He looks so scared._

_He looks so sad._

He clutches a stack of index cards tightly in his hand, visibly trembling, and stares directly at them as he begins to rattle off his speech in a stilted monotone.

“Good morning, students and faculty, I just would like to say a few words today—about my best friend—Connor Murphy—“

He loses his breath on the last words, which come out as a choked gasp.

_Jesus, he can barely bring himself to say his name._

He flips the card to the bottom of the stack, spasmodically, and starts in on the next.

“I would like to tell you about the day we went to the old Autumn Smile apple orchard. Connor and I stood under an oak tree and he said, he wanted to know what the world would look like from all the way up there, and so we decided to find…”

He swallows, and cuts himself off early, jumping to the next card.

_ngl guys at this point I was just begging him to get the hell off the stage_

“We started climbing slowly, one branch at a time, when I finally looked back, we were already thirty feet off the… Connor looked back at me and smiled in that way he always did, and then I… “

He sways, dizzy, and swallows hard.

“And then I fell… I lay there on the ground…”

His voice is almost inaudible at this point.

_yeah we all thought for sure he was gonna puke_

_You know I remember so clearly thinking to myself what a spaz this guy was the first time I saw this video and after watching it so many times it makes me really, really hate the person I was two weeks ago._

He fumbles with his cards and accidentally pulls the next card from the bottom rather than from the top.

“Good morning, students and faculty, I just would like to…”

Panic dawns on his face as giggles can be heard from the audience. His hands start shaking uncontrollably, and with a sudden jerk his cards scatter, flying into the audience. Just a second too late he lunges after them, losing his balance and sprawling onto his face, barely avoiding falling off the stage.

He stays there, motionless, hyperventilating, curled into a heap, as the room falls into a sudden tense silence.

Ten agonizing seconds pass.

_They say one of the teachers was about to call 911, they seriously thought he had a seizure or something._

_I can barely make myself watch this part. But I force myself to every time._

_I actually picked up one of those cards after the assembly, it landed in the aisle right next to my seat. It was some bullshit from a website about the growth of the teen suicide rate in the past ten years. Can you imagine if that were the speech we’d gotten?_

_OK so yeah I talked to the girl Cassie who filmed this, she was totally gonna just share it as a cringe video with her friends—you didn’t hear that from me, but he just looked so… you know… I mean she’s not a mean person but… well, I guess that’s why we all needed to hear this speech, isn’t it?_

_When I watched this video again for the first time after seeing it in person… when I saw him fall down in front of everyone, with no one to pick him up… God I had to turn it off and calm myself down_

Slowly, as though he barely has enough strength to do it, he rolls over onto his side, then his back. Then, in a series of slow, deliberate motions, he manages to get his feet under him and get back upright. Something seems to calm him, and he begins to speak again, his voice clear now, his gaze steady.

“I fell. And I fell for… such a long time. It was the scariest thing, the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me, like the whole world was just… gone, there was… nothing to grab onto. I saw the ground rushing toward me like—like a huge fist coming at my face, and I closed my eyes and I raised my hand to block it, to protect my head, and it slammed into me and I felt my arm just… crack.”

A long pause. He clenches his left hand, on the arm with the cast, and he almost forces himself to start talking again, the words hesitant, stumbling.

“It hurt so much. All over my body. And I felt so… tiny and stupid and ashamed, like I was gonna die out there and my life was wasted, like you hear about… about your life rushing past your eyes, right, and all I could see right then was all the mistakes I’d made, all the dumb things I’d done…

I guess—I guess it was the worst time I felt like that. But it wasn’t… it wasn’t the only time, you know? The worst thing was how familiar it was. Like, my life before I met Connor, it wasn’t… it wasn’t great, a lot of the time, I didn’t really have any friends, I didn’t—my mom works really hard, and she tries her best, but—I spent so much time alone, you know?

I spent so much time alone and thinking it was never gonna change. That I was always gonna be alone, that someday I’d be on my deathbed somewhere and I was gonna die alone, that no one was ever gonna—gonna care, gonna notice, all these dumb things I’d done, all these stupid ways I’d hurt myself, and in the end it was just gonna add up to nothing, like some nurse at the hospital was gonna just go ‘Time of death’ and put me in a drawer and that would be it, you know?

And… and that was how I felt when I fell out of that tree that day. All of that just rushing back. I just knew. It was what I’d been waiting for all that time. The end.

And I fell so long and so far and when I landed it was so quiet. The wind was blowing through the leaves and it was like I was the only person on Earth, and it hurt so much but somehow, somehow I couldn’t even make myself scream, it was like it didn’t matter, it was like the silence was this huge… huge ocean all around me and I knew if I screamed it would just be swallowed up. It felt like I lay there forever and all I could think was, I’m alone, I’m alone, I’m alone…”

He makes an awful gurgling noise in his throat, and turns away, trying to hide his face in his elbow.

_I’ve never seen an auditorium full of teenagers so still in my life. Not in 30 years of teaching._

He takes a shuddering breath, his eyes closed, his whole body tensed, rigid, his jaw clenched tight. And then he leans forward on the podium, putting his full weight on it, like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a rock.

“But I wasn’t alone.

You know, I just… I kind of lost it a little, I’d forgotten. Connor was there the whole time. He was climbing down as fast as he could, he was this close to falling and breaking something himself. He was calling my name, Evan, Evan! But I couldn’t hear him.

I just, I closed my eyes and I thought, this is it, this is the end, and it felt like time stretched out, that I’d been lying there for forever… but, but I hadn’t, it couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds. Because as soon as I opened them again… he was there.

He was coming to get me. He was coming to get me as fast as he could. And I just… I dunno, it’s like… the worst moment of my life, those thirty seconds when I felt so alone and so empty and lost…

It’s strange, because as soon as I saw him it was like, like a switch flipped. I wanted to laugh out loud at how silly I’d been. The whole time, he’d been coming to get me, as fast as he could. I’d been so scared, so upset, and for no reason, all I had to do was just… hold on.

I can… I can think about it now, and I’m not sad. It’s not the worst moment of my life anymore.

That moment when I opened my eyes and he was there. And I knew that I was wrong. Not just then. All the times before. All those dark nights. My whole life. The whole time, I was wrong. The whole time, there was… there was someone coming to get me. Coming as fast as he could. And all I had to do was hold on, and… and someday I’d be found.”

He starts to smile, and the change spreads from his face to his body, everything about his voice and movements suddenly buoyant, glowing.

_I can’t… you guys, I can’t, I didn’t realize when you said this video was intense—I’m sorry, I can’t—_

“That was… that was the gift Connor gave me. You know, not just that he pulled me up off the ground and he held me up as we walked back to the car, and drove me to the hospital and sat with me for three hours, and took me out for late night ice cream after they set my cast. Not just that he turned the worst day of my life into the best, just by being there.

It wasn’t just that day. Every day. You don’t—you don’t know what a difference it makes, how much it changes you, unless you’ve gone from being alone, thinking you’ll always be alone, to having someone who—who makes you know, really know, that you will never be alone.

It’s not just that day. It’s all the days before and all the days after. So many days where… where I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t…”

The tears are flowing freely but he makes no move to wipe them and the smile never leaves his face. We can now hear, faintly but unmistakably, the sound of sobbing from the audience. The hand holding the camera begins to shake.

“I feel… I feel so ashamed to say this, but when I heard that Connor had died, I just… My first thoughts were about myself, you know? I looked at his family who were grieving and who didn’t even know I was friends with their son and I was just mad at them for bringing me this news, for forcing me to be alone again, I was mad at Connor, I actually said to myself I hated him, for leaving me, for making me have to… have to live like this again.

Like I was back in that forest under that tree, you know, like him coming to get me was all a dream and it had never happened. Like it was all for nothing, like I was right back where I started, and I didn’t, I couldn’t hear it, I started yelling at them to leave me alone, never talk to me again.

But then… you know, I went home, and thought about it. Connor, he... never really wanted to open up to anyone about, about us, but… Mrs. Murphy was so sad, and… I just felt like, after everything Connor did for me, I could do this one thing for his parents…

And the more I talked about it the less mad at him I felt. I mean, what I said was wrong. As much as I hated him for what he did, how he left me, left everyone, it doesn’t… it can’t make all those good things go away. They still happened. The big things and the little things. No matter what, they still happened. No matter what, I still think back to that day and remember him, coming just as fast as he could to get me.”

His voice is ringing out loud and clear now, echoing through the auditorium. He finally takes a pause to mop at his face with his shirtsleeve, wiping off a mess of sweat and tears and snot, but it barely affects the rhythm of his speech, now all earnest intensity as he seems to look the viewer directly in the eye.

“And I thought and I thought about it and I dunno, at some point I stopped being mad. I stopped thinking about how much I needed him. And I started thinking about how much he needed me.

Just, God, how was I so wrapped up in myself that… I knew he had problems, I’d thought things were getting better, it was so easy for me to just assume they were getting better…

But he was… he was falling. That whole time, he was falling, and that cold hard ground was… was rushing up to meet him, and I… I always told myself, if it was the other way around, if he needed me the way I needed him, that I’d come to get him just as fast as I could...

But I didn’t make it in time.”

_god fucking dammit_

_don’t fucking talk to me right now do not do not_

_I was seated near where they had Mr. and Mrs. Murphy, and Zoe, and the looks on their faces, Jesus Christ_

And he takes another long, slow breath and looks down at his hands, his voice soft, calm, yet each syllable clear as a gunshot.

“I just wanted to say… You know, I can almost barely remember how Connor and I met. It’s just so random, we started talking one day, and starting to talk to someone is so hard, I know, it took so long before I could bring myself to do it, but…

But it’s so important, you know? Like of all the things I’ve ever done in my life, it was the most important. Reaching out, talking to him. If, if I’d known how to do just a little better… I don’t know. I’ll always think about that day Connor was there for me. And I’ll always think about the day I wasn’t there for him. Both days, until the day I die.

And it’s just… I wish I could’ve told him. What I’m telling you now. That you’re, you’re lying there thinking you’re alone and you’ve always been alone and you’ll always be alone, but… There’s someone, someone coming to get you as fast as they can. And you’ve just got to hold on.

Please, please hold on.

Because someone somewhere else is falling, and you’re the one who’s coming to get them. Someone has to save you, so you can save them. Because—because you watch the news, you hear the gossip, you look all around you and everyone is falling, and scared, and they all think they’re alone but if we all think that that means we’re all wrong, none of us are alone, we can be the ones to save each other, we have to be the ones to save each other—

Because if you just hold on a little longer and you listen for that voice calling your name and you reach out your hand blindly even when all those voices in your head are screaming that it’s useless and there’s nothing there—

If—if we all do that, if we all just try to do that—if everyone just promises not to give up trying to find each other…

Then… then I promise. You will be found.”

He looks around as though surprised to find himself still onstage, and awkwardly, aimlessly stumbles his way off stage right. The camera doesn’t follow him, just lingers on the podium as he walks out of frame.

_I know you’re not gonna believe this but I think from the way he left he actually thought people were offended, because he went over his time or something, like he couldn’t see anyone’s faces because of the lights so he thought they were all being silent because they were pissed. I remember people said nobody could find him afterwards, no one even saw him for the rest of the day at school, they said he didn’t fucking even know what was happening until the next day._

_Did they even have the rest of the assembly after this? I feel like they must have but I don’t remember a single minute of it._

_I never thought in my life I would see Principal Howard just bawling like that in front of everyone._

_Okay, yeah, I… I’m Cassie, I’m the one who took this video. And yeah, I admit it, I didn’t do it with the best of intentions, like everyone at school was just spreading all these rumors about Evan and Connor being these weird closeted gay lovers and that Evan was on all these meds and messed up in the head and that his speech would be serious popcorn.gif, you know. I’m not proud of it, if I’d known what was coming I would’ve respected the announcement not to take any recordings, but then later I kept watching the video on my phone over and over and it just felt wrong to delete it... In hindsight I’m not sure why I even thought it was supposed to be fucking funny that Evan and Connor might have been gay, or that Evan was battling mental illness. God, I just turned 18, I’m literally an adult, and I didn’t realize how much growing up I still had to do until I was looking at this video on my phone and asking myself why I’d taken it, so I guess that’s something else I can thank Evan for. It’s just… what started as a really shitty thing I did turned into something else in the end, and it’s helped so many people, including me. So consider this my way of making an apology to Evan and the Murphy family for violating their privacy in the first place, and a humble way of saying thanks for being so gracious about it, and letting this community grow out of it. And, well, that’s it from me, I guess. #YouWillBeFound_

The stage stands empty for a long moment, people shuffling awkwardly as though waiting for Evan to return, or for someone to take charge and make some kind of announcement. Then the camera’s view jerks around wildly, showing us brief glimpses of students all rising to their feet in unison, and goes black as its owner lets it drop to their seat and there is nothing but the sound of thunderous applause.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just getting back into writing fics under a new throwaway alias after a long hiatus, so please be gentle.
> 
> I've recently become obsessed with Dear Evan Hansen, and in particular I'm fascinated by the implication in the musical that Evan, despite his clumsiness with words under normal circumstances, is some kind of charismatic genius orator if you catch him in the right moments, moments represented by songs like "For Forever" and "You Will Be Found".
> 
> I really enjoy the way Evan talks in the show -- I find it very close to the rambling way I speak and think and write when unfiltered and in rough drafts. I set myself a challenge here to see if I could write something that realistically felt like something Evan would say if he were speaking from the heart, without notes, and totally off the cuff, that nonetheless actually could go viral and become this inspirational message that touched thousands of people's hearts.
> 
> I really did write this in one long breathless torrent to try to get into Evan's state of mind, as well as throwing in the random comments from viewers reacting to it (which I imagine to be a mix of actual YouTube comments and comments people are making to each other in real life as they watch it).
> 
> As always, comments give me life.


End file.
